Slanted House Beam Pockets

wagggsAugust 4, 2010

I'm trying to resupport the main beam of my house and part of that process involves replacing the badly compressed existing wood shims in the beam pockets with steel ones. Unfortuately,the pockets the beam is in are slanted and very uneven. From what I can see the uneveness and slanting of the bottoms of the beam pockets was caused by someone chiseling out the bottoms of the pockets after the foundation was poured. Anyway, I'd like to somehow level out the bottoms of the beam pockets so I can use steel versus wood shims. I was thinking of using some sort of epoxy that bonds well to concrete, but worry that the epoxy won't have enough compression strenght. Any thoughts you have regarding the use of epoxy to straighten the pockets and/or any other ideas you have would be sincerely appreciated.

Brickeyee. Thank you for your input. It's obvious you understand exactly what I would like to do and why I want to do it. Although I haven't removed the load from the beam or the existing shims yet, I'm estimating that in some areas a maximum of 5/8" of something will need to be added to level the pockets. If necessary, I intend to attach small forms to the walls to accomplish this. Since I know very little about mortar or cement, can you recommend any specific products or ratios that would work in this application? Thanks again. Wagggs